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Enhancing Inclusive Governance in Fragile & (Post) Conflict-Affected Settings

Every Voice CountsDISCUSSION PAPER

An exploration of social norms related practices affecting public authorities

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Introduction Inclusive governance (IG) can be understood as a means to reducing poverty, empowering poor and marginalized communities, and rendering nations accountable to the needs and interests of their citizens. Further, CARE believes that IG is a fundamental right and should be a goal in itself. To be inclusive implies that all people have the right to participate meaningfully in governance processes and influence decisions that affect them. Effectiveness is perceived to be built through inclusivity when institutions, power holders, and policies become more accessible, accountable, and responsive to marginalized groups. This, in turn, helps protect citizens’ interests and provide equal access to services (e.g., health, education, justice)1 across diverse populations, which are well-understood to not only be important human rights, but also key factors for sustainable development and peacebuilding.

Yet, the process of developing IG in fragile and (post) conflict-affected settings (FCAS) faces many challenges. Many factors contribute to the origin and sustainability of suboptimal conditions. These factors span community to political dynamics, and culture to international relations. The persistence of detrimental social norms and related practices have been identified as one of the key barriers that hinder marginalized populations, specifically women and youth, from full participation in IG development initiatives. In the quest to create social change, acknowledging and addressing social norms is crucial. Effectively doing so requires an understanding of norms as part of the larger system, specifically the contextual factors enabling and disabling positive and negative norms and practices.

Governance Norms: What, Why, and How?The Every Voice Counts (EVC) program from CARE Netherlands (CNL), funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Dialogue and Dissent strategic partnership, supports inclusive governance through multiple domains including strengthening more responsive public authorities. EVC has found that little research exists on the social norms and related practices of public authorities2 that hinder inclusive governance, specifically those that enable or disable transparency3, inclusivity4, responsiveness5, and accountability.6 To respond to this knowledge gap, CNL commissioned a study to investigate the social norms and related practices of public authorities that hinder and enable inclusivity and effectiveness within IG programming.

In recent years, much attention has been paid in the literature and in practice to the role of ‘social norms’ in defining behavior and deep-seated cultural attitudes and practices within communities, with a strong focus on the social norms related to gender. Less attention, however, has been paid to how norms amongst public authorities and within public-serving institutions get formed, generated and reinforced, and how this impacts inclusive governance processes. Inquiry from this perspective can shed insight on the contextual factors (from the FCAS to the community level) and sanctions that enable or hinder their ability to develop IG, but also the social norms that exist within government institutions and those more broadly associated with the FCAS context, local communities, and personal networks.

1 CARE Netherlands (2016). Every Voice Counts Program: Theory of Change. CARE Netherlands.2 In this study, ‘public authorities’ refer to the bureaucratic and elected representatives of government with the power and resources to build IG.3 This study defines transparency as the extent information and/or data linked to the decisions of government institutions is open and easily accessible, including those pertaining to laws, budgets and expenses, planning and prioritization. 4 This study defines inclusivity as processes or practices that enable individuals and groups to take part in society that may otherwise be marginalized or excluded such as women and youth.5 The CARE UK Governance Strategy 2008-2013 defines responsiveness as encouraging meaningful and inclusive participation (stakeholder engagement) throughout all stages of the decision-making cycle, and stakeholders’ inputs translate into practices and policies.6 This study defines accountability as the obligation to reveal, explain and justify one’s actions in a relevant, timely and accessible manner, and accept the threat of sanctions for failure to fulfill one’s duties.

Source Report Authors: Jennie Phillips, Ph.D. | Katie Whipkey, M.Sc. | Steadman Noble, M.A

AcknowledgementsThis study was made possible through the vision and support of a team of colleagues including, but not limited to, staff from CARE Nederland, CARE Burundi, CARE Somalia, and The Hague Academy. These tremendous colleagues provided their advice and input into the research framework, data collection tools, coordination of and partic-ipation in data collection, and comments on the final report. Many thanks to Freddy Sahinguvu for conducting interviews and focus groups in-country and Abdiaziz Muse for coordinating all data collection in Somalia. Thank you to the local data collectors for taking notes and transcribing and translating all of the data. Most importantly: we extend our gratitude to the 83 individuals who shared their time, experiences, and expertise with us during data collection. Without all of you, this study would not have been possible! Among those participants are the content-matter experts around the globe: Dr. Beniamino Cislaghi, Dr. Jacopo Costa, Dr. Jonathan Fox, Ms. Marjolein Jongman, Ms. Francesca Moneti, Dr. Jo Rowlands, Ms. Cheyanne Scharbatke-Church, and Mr. Rolf Swart. Finally, we are also thankful for Cheyanne Scharbatke-Church for her review, including her thoughtful comments and insights on the report.

© OCTOBER 2019

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Policy and Practice: Why Social Norms MatterThe study aims to help inform to the existing inclusion efforts in the Netherlands (NL) and the European Union (EU). The Netherlands (NL) and the EU have already made strong commitments to inclusion by providing vocal commitments to the implementation of numerous frameworks (e.g., UNSCR 1325, SDGs). Within NL, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs has established the Dialogue and Dissent strategic partnership and beginning in January 2021, NL will initiate the Power of Voices framework that focuses strongly on civil society strengthening. Through

the key findings and recommendations provided, it is hoped that this study can provide an additional evidence base for the funding and work of INGOs and donors that work with governments to buy-into and support IG programming. The study makes it clear: Social norms impact inclusive governance through guiding the behaviors of powerholders, decisionmakers, and the community. Addressing social norms is not the only solution, but failure to acknowledge norms can undermine the effectiveness of an IG program, potentially worsen a situation, and even put the people programs wish to support at risk.

Social norms: What are they and how do they work? Social norms depict social pressures and expectations to behave; they directly or indirectly dictate behavior, but they are not the behavior itself.7 A primary norm, like a woman should not speak if a man is in the room, has a direct impact on behavior. A secondary norm, like a woman cannot make important decisions has an indirect impact on behavior. Social norms cannot enforce themselves, they propagate through a system of collective behaviors and beliefs.8 Norms evolve and sustain through individual, social and structural factors. Social norms are socially constructed and shared through a reference group. The social influence of reference groups is enforced through positive or negative sanctions. Sanctions reinforce and sustain behaviors in place. The stronger the norm, the stronger the social pressure to act a certain way. In many cases, these norms may be competing or reinforcing one another. In a corrupt system, for example, a government official may face the primary norm against stealing and a secondary norm to expect

bribes to support their families from their community. The stronger norm (the one that exerts more social pressure or has more severe sanctions) will most likely dictate behavior.9

7 Scharbatke-Church, C., & Chigas, D (2019). Understanding social norms: a reference guide for policy and practice. Henry J Lier Institute, Tufts University.8 Hoffmann, L. K., & Navanit Patel, R. (2017). Collective Action on Corruption in Nigeria: A Social Norms Approach to Connecting Society and Institutions. Chatham House9 Cislaghi, B., Heise, L. 2017 October. Embedding Social Norms for Effective Anti-Corruption Interventions. CDA. Retrieved from https://www.cdacollaborative.org/blog/embedding-social-norms-effective-anti-corruption-interventions/; Jackson, D., & Kobis, N. (2018). Anti-corruption through a social norms lens. U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre. Retrieved from https://www.u4.no/publications/anti-corruption-through-a-social-norms-lens

Social Norms: the behavioral rules and expectations (formal and informal) that are constructed and shared by a reference group; they can be reinforced through sanctions.

Reference Group: consists of the people (e.g., family, leaders, or colleagues) whose opinions on the specific issue addressed through the social norm at hand tend to matter the most.

Sanctions: refers to the consequences that reinforce and sustain behaviors in place as a result of the approval or disapproval of one’s actions by a reference group.

ALL NORMS EXIST TO SERVE A PURPOSE WITHIN A SYSTEM. In the event of resource scarcity, for example, norms linked to corruption or violence may surface when a government cannot provide service to all its citizens.10 Social norms may be an important mechanism to acquire and maintain power and control. This is associated with the idea of ‘power asymmetry’, where those in power have a vested interest in keeping certain rules in place that advance their interests. At all levels, social norm change involves addressing the power relations around that norm. The role of context has critical implications in terms of norm evolution and sustainability. Factors of the environment, from a culture of violence to poverty to a poor education system, will have direct and indirect impacts on the norms and practices that emerge within a system.

THE PROCESS OF CHANGING SOCIAL NORMS CAN BE A COMPLEX AND INTRICATE PROCESS,11 which involves acknowledging the complex relationship between norms, the individual and their context, as well as their relationship between norms themselves. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to addressing social norms. Broader social change is brought about through addressing norms in conjunction with the contextual factors that enable and disable these norms. Social norms must be treated as part of a broader ecosystem for interventions to be successful.

10 Scharbatke-Church, C., & Chigas, D (2019). Understanding social norms: a reference guide for policy and practice. Henry J Lier Institute, Tufts University.11 Menocal AR. (2016). “It’s all about inclusion, but how? World Bank Blogs, World Bank Group. Retrieved from https://blogs.worldbank.org/governance/it-s-all-about-inclusion-how.

Figure 1: Adapted strength of normative influence spectrum. Adapted based on Cislaghi, B., Heise, L. (2018). Four avenues of normative influence: a research agenda for health promotion in low and mid-income countries. Health psychology.

WEAKER STRONGER

INFLUENCE INFLUENCEPOSSIBLE TOLERATED APPROPRIATE OBLIGATORY

01 02 03 04

I could adapt a policy being considered based on feedback from local women.

I can hold a meeting to solicit community development ideas.

I ‘d better just do what my boss says even if I don’t understand how to do it well.

I must withhold some decisions from the public because they go against our government’s platform.

WEAKEST NORMATIVE INFLUENCE

WEAK NORMATIVE INFLUENCE

STRONG NORMATIVE INFLUENCE

STRONGEST NORMATIVE INFLUENCE

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There is widespread consensus that ‘inclusion’ within political processes is crucial to international development, from citizen empowerment to fostering peace12 in FCAS.13 The political nature of governance often means that the interests of those less able to participate (i.e., the marginalized) are the interests that often get left out in policy and budget processes. Inclusive processes are important to give all segments of society access to government decision making in order to better reflect their interests, needs and aspirations, both in policy making and in service delivery. The engagement of marginalized groups helps to access knowledge about needs, solutions, and impacts that could otherwise be overlooked and help address the differential impacts of various policies for all segments of society.14

Inclusive governance (IG) invariably assumes that certain preconditions exist for it to be realized, which may be necessary but not exclusive conditions for IG. In FCAS contexts, these conditions are not a given and are a lot more unpredictable. In contexts of fragility, the norms or ‘rules of the game’, as deployed by public authorities (PAs), tend to be more informal (e.g., based on social rules) than formal (e.g., codified in law). These fluid and informal rules are often a reflection of weak and/or absent systems of management, weak rule of law, and poor checks and balances (horizontal accountability) within the system. The challenge for IG, however, is not just one of absent or weak systems and institutions. As highlighted in the World Development Report (WDR) 2017, “the unequal distribution of power in the policy arena can lead to exclusion, capture, and clientelism.”15 These practices

have direct implications for the ability of citizens to participate in and influence policy and budget processes. Understanding how power asymmetries are formed, their incentives for public authorities, and how this impacts the participation and interests of the poor is a key consideration for IG.

Civil society’s capability to self-mobilize and build solidarity for collective action is an important condition for IG. Often civil society is loosely organized, divided, and has weak capacity to influence and drive change on issues about which marginalized groups care, especially in FCAS. According to research from the Governance and Social Development Resource Center, “Social movements have the potential to democratise the state and foster a sense of citizenship amongst movement members.”16 For IG to be effective and transform institutions, civil society organizations (CSOs) must develop the agility and influence to build pro-reform coalitions across sectors and levels (e.g., national, sub-national and international), sometimes with diaspora and unusual suspects, to be effective in improving the state of governance in FCAS.17

The rules and expectations that govern the social contract between citizens and the state is central to the inclusive governance discourse. That is because the interplay or exchange between state institutions and the citizenry in the delivery of public policy and services are not neutral or merely transactional. They are bound by values, attitudes and beliefs that are constructed over time and which come to shape the ‘rules of the game’. Although some FCAS regions buy-into and champion IG development,

Invisible opportunities: what is the relationship between norms, inclusive governance, and FCAS?

others reflect lower motivation and understanding to recognize the benefits. In some instances, the core principles IG aims to promote (e.g., open-dialogue, community input and engagement in decision making, transparency) conflict with the cultural needs of those in power and put them at risk of serious social sanctions (e.g., ostracized, abuse, etc.).

NORMS ARE PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT FOR THE IG DISCOURSE because the attitudes, behavior and practices of PAs impact the opportunities, and sometimes the very survival, of some of the most marginalized and excluded groups in society. The relative power of the bureaucratic and political elite and the offices they reside within can have the effect of reinforcing power dynamics and discriminatory norms. The response from public authorities in fragile contexts has been shown to affect the degree of conflict that can be experienced in those settings. In a sense, public authorities can take social norms to scale; reinforcing them at an institutional level and magnifying their impact on the groups they affect.

Norms generally have a stronger influence in FCAS than more stable countries. When societies are more segmented, rejecting a norm can be devastating in contexts where in-group affiliation is critical. Also, social norms can offer a sense of order or predictability in volatile climates. On one hand, social norms in society could help promote IG processes and practices; but, on the other hand, detrimental normative beliefs, practices and behaviors get replicated within the institutional and bureaucratic systems of public policy and service delivery to reinforce exclusion and discrimination. This latter manifestation of social norms is harmful and gives rise to power asymmetries that have a detrimental effect on inclusive governance processes. In this form, power becomes invisible and the rules get encoded within the system to establish a ‘status quo’ that is self-reinforcing. These social norms tend to be the most difficult to change when there are people who stand to lose power from change are active resistors of change.

Public authorities experience social norms driven by actors across the system

What are the governance-related social norms and related practices that affect IG development?A series of social norms and related practices that affect engagement and IG delivery from the perspective of public authorities, as well as the engagement of marginalized communities (specifically women and youth), are present in all contexts worldwide. These norms become particularly important in fragile and conflict-affected contexts due to their ability to hinder peace efforts.

INTERNATIONAL ACTORS MAY HAVE MORE INFLUENCE ON SOCIAL NORMS THAN WE THINK. Governments in FCAS impose IG to comply with international pressures, standards and regulations in order to secure donor funding or ensure foreign infrastructure investment. IG is frequently perceived as a developed world ideal imposed on FCAS. Relying on INGOs has mixed outcomes in terms of dynamics with the state. As one

participant explained, funding NGOs to do the work that the state is supposed to do enables a dependence relationship with the global north. Further, public authorities elect to shirk responsibilities because they know they can rely on INGO partners to implement. On the other hand, internationally funded NGOs play a substantial role in enabling IG development, and many participants highlighted that sensitivity trainings and capacity-building initiatives with PAs and community leaders were some of the primary channels for building the elements of IG.

THE PRIORITY FOR IG DEVELOPMENT DISINTEGRATES AS IT MOVES TO THE LOCAL LEVEL, if it reaches that level at all. Public authorities experience stronger upward accountability in the workplace (accountability to their superiors) than to the general public. Despite national mandates, management further down the organizational structure under-prioritises IG. This lack of senior support implies IG development is heavily

12 Rausch, C., & Luu, T. (2017). Inclusive Peace Processes are Key to Ending Violent Conflict. United States Institute of Peace.13 Pinnington, R., Douma, N., and Whipkey, K. (2019). Social inclusion study in fragile contexts: Pathways towards the inclusion of women & girls in local governance processes. The Hague: CARE Nederland.14 OECD. (2015). Government at a Glance 2015, Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/gov_glance-2015-en.15 World Bank. (2017). World Development Report: Main Messages. Retrieved at https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr201716 Earle, L. (2011) Literature Review on the Dynamics of Social Movements in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States. Birmingham: UK Department for International Development (DFID) through the Emerging Issues Research Service of the Governance and Social Development Resource Centre GSDRC). Retrieved from https://gsdrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EIRS13.pdf17 O’Meally, S. C. (2013) Mapping Context for Social Accountability. Washington, DC, USA: The World Bank Group. Retrieved from http:// siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/Resources/244362-1193949504055/Context_and_SAcc_RESOURCE_PAPER.pdf

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under-resourced in terms of time, money, training, and human resources. Even if PAs think IG is desirable, they are constrained at the local levels and IG ends up being developed ad-hoc or not at all. Typically, public authorities give value (i.e., resources, time, etc.) to visible structures more than topics linked to gender balance, gender-based violence, and broader IG principles.

IN SOME CASES, PUBLIC AUTHORITIES REFRAIN FROM IG ACTIVITIES simply because they perceive giving a voice to communities will create the opportunity for bigger expectations and broader demands that they may or may not be able to accommodate (due to insufficient resource or other constraints). Also, many PAs believe that adopting IG practices implies giving up power to the public. In other words, PAs perceive that becoming more inclusive and responsive to the needs of the public means they empower the public while they disempower themselves and their institution. Further, it is generally frowned upon to try to over-perform or change things, and the social pressures are strong to not reveal the secrets of superiors not doing what they’re supposed to be doing according to law or official mandate.

The average citizen has little knowledge about policy matters and relies upon a variety of information sources and methods to make decisions that have varying degrees of reliability and validity. As a result, some power holders may be able to frame and manipulate people’s perceptions to influence their choices. There is a danger of governments engaging in ‘open-washing’18 if they are forced to become more responsive, accountable, and inclusive, whereby they cherry-pick ideas from the citizens that already align with pre-determined government priorities to give an illusion of responsiveness and downward accountability.

ACROSS FCAS, PARTICIPANTS DESCRIBED THE INFLUENCE (AND SWAY) OF INFORMAL POWER HOLDERS (clans, political parties, political supporters, friends, family, and the immediate community)

on PAs. PAs face social pressures to place the needs of these groups before the broader community they serve. In Somalia, for example, clan affiliation is so important that clan leaders are the main decision makers. Consequently, PAs frequently outsource, reward and/or prioritize IG decision making specific to their reference groups with the strongest influence.

MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES INCLUDING WOMEN AND YOUTH ALSO HAVE SOCIAL NORMS THAT IMPACT THEIR PARTICIPATION IN IG. Marginalized communities are often considered weak and incapable of effective decision making or informing governance activities. This norm often leads to their exclusion and can strengthen partiality to stronger reference groups. Also, they can be self-disempowering. Community members can feel disenchanted or lack motivation to participate in IG activities, or potentially feel the pressure by family or community members to not engage. During meetings, the destination and purpose of any information collected is not shared; so, combined with skepticism around norms linked to information collection, and in a culture of distrust and a traumatic past, this lack of transparency has adverse effects on open discussion and honest feedback from communities.

In FCAS, it is common that the role of a woman is to maintain the household and care for their family. Combined, they may be physically limited in public spaces. This restriction can limit their access to information that would enable them to participate in IG activities. Furthermore, when women do engage, and even when they hold leadership roles, often women are still not intrinsically viewed as equal and valuable. One participant explained: “Local elections

are done in a way where they nominate people then they

suddenly remember about the 30% quota and quickly

vote in women because it’s required by law.” Another participant remarked during one government event she attended, women PAs were simply sitting in the room knitting (because they had no role) while men dominated discussion.

Women in Burundi participating in a community dialoguePhoto by Irene Nduwayezu

Why do these social norms exist?The nature of FCAS are complex, including the experiences and expectations of the people that share these spaces. The concept of IG, in many ways, conflicts with many of ingrained beliefs and learned behaviors linked with their contexts. Elements like transparency and inclusivity can be incompatible with norms linked to secrecy and trust that stem from a volatile history. From genocide to conflict, there are deeply-engrained norms that come out of trauma. For example, one interviewee remarked: “There is a restriction on freedom: assembly, speaking

on certain things. That has become part of the DNA and

how we work … It’s a history issue.”

AT THE GOVERNMENT LEVEL, both national and sub-national/local, social norms and related practices often stem from competing priorities, misunderstanding of IG, as well as competing institutional norms. PAs must balance both internal and external pressures to sustain and accrue power,

while also manage being powerless to those superior (upward accountability). If the internal culture dictates obedience versus the freedom to speak up to one’s superiors, it becomes difficult to encourage inclusivity and transparency. In conditions where accountability is higher upward than downward, and where transparency is disregarded, the connection between power and corruption strengthens and takes priority to building the elements of IG.

AT THE COMMUNITY AND INDIVIDUAL LEVELS, PAs must navigate competing identities, and may experience stronger negative sanctions with developing IG principles than not. PAs must balance their identity as an individual, a PA, and a community member. In many cases, it’s the competing social norms between these personal, community, and government levels that can lead to negatively reinforcing IG norms and practices. For women that do engage in politics or government, they face even harsher competing identities: they are heavily pressured to meet both norms in the workplace

18 Wytze, A. (2016) Open Washing: Scratching Beneath the Surface of France’s Open Government Initiative. GovNews. Retrieved from https://g0v.news/open-washing-scratching-beneath-the-surface-of-frances-open-government-initiative-4fe970a9fa8

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and in their community. This can trigger norms linked to lower engagement and experience of women in PA positions.

CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS NORMS can trigger and reinforce norms linked to gender, youth, and marginalized communities. Patriarchy runs strong in FCAS, and heavily dictates the expectations and behaviors of men and women, as well with youth. At the community level, it perpetuates negative social norms regarding women further through the immediate social networks surrounding women (e.g., families, churches, and friends). Frequently, these social pressures combined with contextual factors like lack of education and poverty, lead women to internalize their oppression, adopt these norms as their own while perpetuating them to other women. Additionally, many of these social norms can be linked to men feeling forced into their masculine position of the provider, the powerful, the asset holder. For men that wish to not conform, they are heavily sanctioned at the community level. Also, men are often overlooked in sensitivity training, which amplifies fear linked to engaging women and lack of understanding of the value of women in government.

THE SELF-DISCRIMINATING NORMS ASSOCIATED WITH MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES create a positive feedback loop for exclusion. Often these communities have no resources to invest, whether social, physical or human capital. They may lack education, relationships, and money. If they are lacking in all three dimensions, it is difficult to believe in a capacity to contribute. Combined with a system that believes these communities lack capacity, this cycle is self-perpetuating. For those that may try to provide input, they are often discriminated by the ones that are supposed to listen to them. In contexts where elders speak on behalf of youth, young people may self-exclude because they may have different interests that misalign with what the elders say and/or the rest of the population. Many feel unheard if these interests are not recognized by the elders, and in turn, their governments.

Within government, patriarchy mixed with legal and contextual factors generates and reinforces social norms linked to the powerlessness of women, low experience, and superficial participation. Including women directly competes with patriarchal norms, and incentives are low to fight these norms. Conversely,

some PAs may wish to include women, but traditional norms are more powerful than progressive ones. Another participant highlighted that, often, there is an incompatibility between laws and gender policies: “Legal frameworks and gender policies are there and well set but the problem lies in the implementations of fighting against the cultural factors that influence public authorities.”

How can we change these norms? Eight overarching challenges are identified from the synthesis of social norms and related practices identified. 1. IG programming starts at the national level and

gets deprioritized as it trickles to the local level2. IG interventions can be too generalized and should

instead work with FCAS contextual factors3. People do not understand IG across all government

levels4. PAs and IG beneficiaries are disinterested and/or

do not value IG across all levels5. Men and powerholders do not understand the

value of engaging women, youth and marginalized communities

6. Changemakers face competing roles that undermine IG progress

7. Marginalized communities, women and youth self-discriminate, reinforcing negative stereotypes

8. PAs must balance needs to remain in power while also building IG mechanisms that may require them to relinquish power

This policy brief makes four overarching recommendations to address the challenges that arise in the development of inclusive governance as a result .of detrimental social norms and related practices in fragile and (post) conflict-affected settings. The recommendations are based on existing evidence and the primary research conducted in Burundi and Somalia, and a third country that is kept anonymous by CARE Nederland’s Every Voice Counts (EVC) program. The recommendations aim to address the underlying social norms that hinder and enable inclusive governance and sustainable peace. These recommendations are geared towards donors and I/NGOs working in the area of inclusive governance.

Recommendation 1Build PA understanding of IG, elements of IG, and why to engage marginalized communities (across all levels of government) • Address country perceptions of IG as internationally

imposed and/or a funding pre-requisite. Seek to de-couple thinking of IG compliance as a source of international funding/support.

• Build and encourage bottom-up/locally driven initiatives that build personalized understanding of, and purpose for, IG and community engagement.

• Work with governments in FCAS to acknowledge the need to better understand IG and community engagement, co-create shared understanding and purpose for IG as an organization, while acknowledging fears and intrinsic motivations.

• Support CSOs in the field to work with PAs to build their understanding and generate their own purpose for IG and community engagement while acknowledging the relationship between IG and individual needs or concerns such as power and trust. For example, quell fears associated with the loss of power, demonstrate how IG can complement power, and guide trust building within and between PAs and communities.

• Investigate working with traditional leaders but be aware of the social norms and power asymmetries that this powerful reference group holds.

Recommendation 2 Build community understanding of IG, elements of IG, why to engage in IG, and their experience and capacity to engage

• Encourage and support bottom-up engagement in IG from the community level, specifically targeting PAs as community members.

• Encourage identification of champions within and between communities, fund at the intersection (e.g., PAs that are able to model, promote and engage within and between communities).

Women leaders Suuqsade, SomaliaPhoto by Georgina Goodwin

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• Work with governments in FCAS to build trust between the government, individual PAs, and local communities. Support governments to work with communities to identify local needs, fears and motivations, and make the connection with IG engagement.

• Promote internship programs for youth to gain experience within national and local governments, particularly for women to recognize and build their capacity and experience.

• Encourage CSOs to work with community members (especially members of marginalized communities) to build understanding of IG, how it is developed and the benefits it provides to them. Community members must develop intrinsic motivations to engage while dispelling the feelings of fear and disempowerment to build confidence in the capacity to engage.

• Make the connection between IG, FCAS contextual factors and individual needs of community members (e.g., relationships with trust, security, poverty).

Recommendation 3Co-create IG purpose and programming inter-ventions with PAs and community when such interventions are absent, or build on existing interventions that are already working

• Promote and support IG development initiatives that encourage cross-sector collaboration, i.e. PA and community, community to community.

• Build IG purpose and programming at the intersection of the different stakeholder groups.

• Encourage governments to participate in and promote IG development programming that is created through collaboration between government and communities.

• Acknowledge there is no one-size-fits-all approach

to IG development. • Support CSOs to develop IG programming from

the bottom up through PAs and local communities working together to define a vision for IG and where IG programming needs to deliver. PAs and communities should collectively identify any risks associated with the change of norms and practices and build ways to prevent and mitigate these risks together.

• Facilitate CSOs to work with PAs and communities to co-identify needs and motivations across groups and co-create IG interventions to address.

Recommendation 4Include women and men (adult and youth) in interventions across varying age levels

• Continue to lobby governments to encourage female participation.

• Acknowledge men as changemakers that are frequently overlooked. Support programming that targets the awareness raising of men.

• Push governments to create and/or engage in initiatives that bring women and youth with men to work together to build experience with collaboration. Incentivize them to give women and youth a role in government and create opportunities for them to learn to fill that role as well as supporting women and youth at higher levels.

• Through CSOs, design sensitization training and workshops or non-IG development activities that incentivize collective participation between PAs and communities to (directly or indirectly) build experience between men and women across age ranges working together.

• Consider targeting older age youth on building perceptions of capacity together (for all genders), encourage shared activities and building IG understanding and motivations.

Every Voice Counts